Creativity in the Pulpit: Filmmaking Secrets to Improve your Homilies

June30,2014

by Fr. Jim Schmitmeyer

When Plato asked the poets about their methodology, he was shocked at the inarticulate response of otherwise eloquent speakers. It’s easy to reconstruct the scene:
“What are your steps for acquiring intuition?,” inquires the philosopher.
“Talk to the Muse,” replies a poet.
“How do you chart the flow of your imagination?” pursues the systematic inquisitor.
“It ebbs more than it flows.”
“And your creativity formula?”
“Know where I can buy a bottle?”
It’s not hard to imagine a similar conversation between Plato and today’s preachers.Creativity and Preaching
Listeners long for the lift and thrill of homily yet, if an entrepreneur could market creativity, he or she would be richer than Bill Gates.
Unfortunately, attempts to capture the creative process and force it into a procedural cage is a bit like, well, leaving it to the imagination, i.e. tire tracks on new fallen snow. No doubt, basic elements of the creative process will forever defy categorization. For this reason, most preachers are hard pressed to describe a particular “system” to coax the creative process from out of its cage to set it free.
But here are a few pointers:Exploration vs. analysis
The challenge of creative preaching is particularly difficult if the preacher harbors an innate urge to control and determine the listeners’ response.
The creative impulse is further deadened by an inner expectation to say something “meaningful.” These pressures often result in a desperate grab for a unifying theme, an overarching concept, or a summary around which the homily is then constructed.
Clarity and order are essential elements in the finished product. But they short- circuit creativity when employed too early in the preparation process. If a preacher wants to be creative, it helps to view the text as an adventure to explore rather than a proposition to expound.Lights, camera, action!
Today’s preachers have a distinct advantage over the Greek poets of old: Hollywood! A brief scan of filming techniques provides ways to create an intense engagement with a sacred text:

The sound track. Note the emotional connotation of particular phrases or words, expound them within your imagination, and let the ramifications expand: “Mary, do not be afraid.” “Blind guides!” “Peter, do you love me?”

Zoom in. Focus on an incidental item; allow its presence to elicit new depths of poignancy (i.e., the sound of water in a basin as feet are washed; the jingle of thirty pieces of silver; the rattle of a chain in a prison cell).

Point of view. Alter the expected perception and view the action from an unlikely perspective—biblical or modern: a teenager cheering Jesus at the cleansing of the temple; a child’s fear on the crowded streets on the day of Pentecost.

Flash back/flash forward. Stop the action and insert a variant scene—again, biblical or contemporary: the woman at the well at noon; an undocumented worker at a laundromat at 2 AM; a paramedic hefting a gurney into an ambulance; Simon of Cyrene hoisting the cross.

“To be continued!”
The final wrap-up need not be tidy. Obvious conclusions demean the listener. In other words, don’t end with them saying, “I’ve heard that before.” Strive for, “Wow! I never saw that coming!”